The Art of the Tractor – celebrating the beauty of old farm tractors with fine art photographs and artwork from around New England and the world.
Do you like old tractors? This is the place to see some of the finest tractor photography by photographer and vintage tractor hound, Edward M. Fielding.
Living in the heart of old tractor hunting grounds, in the Upper Valley region and Kearsarge area of New Hampshire, near the boarder of Vermont, Fielding spends his time hunting the surrounding towns of Springfield, Sunapee, New London, Hanover, Lyme, Cornish as well as deep into rural Vermont in pursuit of fine old vintage tractors in the wild to photograph.
John Deere, Farmall, International Harvester, Ford – if it is an old tractor sold back in the day in New England, chances are Fielding has found and documented it.
Old tractors still in use plowing and haying meadows, old antiques restored and proudly displayed, classics for sale, rusty old heaps put out to pasture as decorations, cute little red house tractors peeking out of barns.
A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery used in agriculture or construction.
Most commonly, the term is used to describe a farm vehicle that provides the power and traction to mechanize agricultural tasks, especially (and originally) tillage, but nowadays a great variety of tasks.
Agricultural implements may be towed behind or mounted on the tractor, and the tractor may also provide a source of power if the implement is mechanized.
To the tractor lover, there is something magical about the tractor in the pasture. It represents wisdom, strength, and former glory as the plower of soil, tender of crops, and the backbone of the nation.
Much like the aging racehorse or the prize bull, after its working days are done, old tractors find resting spots on the edges of fields, alongside barns, or in the hedgerows.
Today, these rusting piles of iron not only represent the memories of nostalgic farmers (past or present), they represent possibilities of restoration, rejuvenation, and new life as sparkling representations of an age gone by.
